The Dry Spell by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 9
Anecdotal Evidence - 4; August 1, 2011. Harmonic display overwhelms any consideration of weather other than the extreme heat, demanding constant attention.
Daisy and I drive to the Bosque as usual and park on the ditch path. As we walk Romero Road we feel as if we were in an oven with the merciless sun reflecting back at us from the already well done ground. Her proximity to it must make things even worse for her and she attempts to cover as much territory in the shade as is possible, which proves less than satisfactory as someone has cut down the few trees that previously existed.
They would say it was in consideration of fire prevention, containing a degree of truth, but it also happens to make observation of the road very easy and the residents can now sit in the “comfort” of their houses, stay cool and watch visitors walk the unexciting road, now having to park their cars outside of it. I wish that they would be capable of taking a hike as they might be fortunate enough to locate the discarded television set. Imagine, twenty-four hours of moving things to watch, including “reality” shows. Ask Marshall McLuhan about that one. Or don’t ask him. He probably doesn’t want to be bothered anyway, as he’d prefer to remain under his swamp cooler listening to it hum.
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Taking her habitual swim in the ditch, Daisy now probably feels a whole lot better than sweaty me. The best thing about this weather is that you are relieved of one tedious chore; washing clothes, as if you did, within five minutes of being outside they’d be back where they started. Africans have come up with a perfect solution for the same problem; wearing almost nothing. But for some reason that has not been adopted here; perhaps because Africans have better bodies or perhaps because we still have our Judeo-Christian hang ups. Actually, one person, whose name I never learned was a free spirit. In prior summers this fifty year old white male, walked his beagle, wearing only sneakers and the briefest of trunks, choosing to be well exhibited, by confining his walks to the levee path. I concluded that he really loved to pose for Nora, as he disappeared when her visits became infrequent, or maybe they just found a more suitable location. I know that she was well aware of his attributes, as she’d often ask me if I saw his cute beagle and I would tell her; “No, my contact was at eye level.”
Daisy and I duck under the locked gate and are on our way to paradise; shade trees! Now somewhat comfortable, she dawdles down the path to the river, investigating all the presents left by four legged visitors over the last twenty-four hours. One was especially fragrant and when she lingered, I asked her; “Who was there?”, but she just looked at me, her expression
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indicating; “Don’t you know?” I told her that I really didn’t, but that I hoped he or she was on a leash.
After another swim, or wade in the slow, shallow river, Daisy turns right, south toward Albuquerque, her favorite hot weather path, as it is either shaded by trees or tall grass and weeds, not yet mowed for fire prevention. She doesn’t seem to know or care that her fully protected status, leaves the upper half of my body exposed to unbowed irradiance. My discomfort is forgotten when I see one of my favorite people, Margie, walking at us from the other direction. She’s smiling at my soaked dog and gets a kick out of her doggie paddling. Better yet, she’s wearing a white tube top that seems to have slipped a bit and she bends down to pet Daisy’s wet head.
She says; “I really miss the shade of that huge tree.”
Murphy appears as if, despite his long hair, he is more concerned with the presence of two potential marauders than he is with the weather.
I say; “Me, too. And Daisy! I think she still walks in this direction expecting to find him again.”
“What do you think happened to him?”
“I’ve had a lot of thoughts, but none of them seem likely for more than a few minutes. I wish I had a picture of him to refresh my memory. It’s been a while.”
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Her eyes lit up and she smiled, saying; “I know where there is one.”
“Where?”
“At the Albuquerque Museum of Art. Well, it’s not a picture, it’s a painting. Some woman,” she paused, “whose name escapes me at the moment painted him at least five times in the early 90’s.” She blinked her eyes and looked at the sky a second, which allowed me a furtive ogle of her legs and short, tight pants, then continued; “Mary Kravath. She was from West Texas and became famous. Four of the paintings are in private hands, but one’s right next door. Did you ever hear of her?”
“No. Is she still alive?”
“I think so. She’s got her own space on Amazon, selling many things including a clothing line.” She giggled a bit at that.
So did I, but I also knew that indicated that Mary Kravath was a big deal. I said; “I might take a drive there this afternoon. Their air conditioning is a lot better than my swamp cooler.”
She smiled and started to walk away. I said; “They usually sell prints of their stuff, don’t they?”
She kept walking; “I’m not sure. Sorry to cut you short, but I really have to go.”
I said; “Billable hours?”
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One of her eyes looked at the sky and her lips made an open-mouthed smile and she kept moving. It’s a shame. All the interesting people are busy and the bores have all day. I guess I know what that makes me, but I’m going to improve myself today, with a museum trip.
Daisy continues her route and stops at the few logs remaining of the great one. She again looks back at me as if to say; “Still?” I nod my head yes and say; “Never again,” knowing that she doesn’t have these words in her vocabulary. I can’t be sure, but it looks as if the logs have been moved around. It’s a nice seat by the water with long views in both directions.
I’d have to think that the rearranging sitters come here after sundown. It annoys me that my old friend is still being forced to conform to some human’s needs almost three years after his death. Is there no peace under any conditions? Damn grave robbers! Do those bent on rearrangement have the slightest idea how great he was from the three logs left in this particular spot? I don’t think that’s possible. When he was alive he had the ability to size them up in a way that would have hung a humorous name on them for life, but he would have been kind in his silence. He always was. Silly anthropomorphism? Maybe, but, it is no doubt less silly than professors believing that they can know something about him “scientifically” and certainly no different at the core, than those who espouse monotheism.
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Back in the material world an again disappointed Daisy trots on with her own undistributed thoughts on the matter.
She’s very fast, but at least she stays on the path, giving me a fighting chance of keeping up without holding her back. I hear wooosh, wooosh and see why speed is paramount today. People in a balloon are very near and seem to be coming down right over our heads. They’re not the least bit anthropomorphic or well mannered, as the three people I can’t make out very well with the sun behind them, don’t care that they are scaring the hell out of Daisy, or maybe that’s their big kick in life. They hover thirty feet over our heads, no doubt looking and sounding like a fire breathing dragon to her. I wonder why the Gawk family has chosen to sacrifice a loftier perch and find the answer too obvious to merit further consideration. With great difficulty and lots of yelling I manage to lead Daisy to a section populated by a number of eighty foot cottonwoods and we wait there to assess the balloonists’ next course of action, hoping they’re stupid enough to directly follow us into the trees. It’s a standoff, but I’m secure in the knowledge that we will shortly prevail, as the pretty sky machine will run out of gas. Daisy and I have all day. I recall a conversation with a Corrales rancher who told me; “The only good balloon is a dead balloon.” Daisy is feeling somewhat better. After surviving the close encounter, the hundred foot distance from the dragon
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is somewhat comforting, but her eyes are still wide open watching it. The persistent, plastic, perverse, polluting, power plant quits, elevates and goes cross river to Rio Rancho, where it seems someone has been operating a balloon ride business. I’m grateful that we’re in the Bosque and thereby don’t have to worry about dodging the balloon chasing drunken maniacs.
Mentally exhausted Daisy decides to call it a short day and leads me back to the safety of our car, tripping on the ground, as she watches the sky in fear of further attack. She relaxes in the safety of our armored tank and sighs; “What a day.” Back home she forgoes her customary anxiousness for her main meal, goes to her bed and says; “I need a nap.”
I need one, too, so I have a quick lunch and join her. I wake up at 12 PM, have a small lunch and prepare for a museum trip, loading up with plenty of cash. I give myself one last taste of fortification and listen to Patti Smith’s live version of “Dead City.”
In the car’s air conditioning Corrales looks well. It usually takes a view of Albuquerque for me to appreciate it, but not today. The clear bright sky illuminates everything in detail without breaking the surface. As I traverse the development, the multi-colored, stucco surfaced Southwestern style houses proudly bask in the heat, feeling impervious to the
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fever. Most have had any trees that may have been close removed. They are not creations of the shadows. Some have thick green lawns, most very tended and others have surfaces covered by whatever feels like growing there. The variety is probably infinite as the different weeds seem to have propagated with other species, producing clusters of mixtures. The deciduous and evergreen trees seem healthy, fed regularly by automatic irrigation systems. No natives are in evidence, likely spending the heat under their swamp coolers or pretending to shop at the nearby mall, which offers everything you’ve ever wanted from A to G. Like me they are generally of the geriatric set, but confine their outdoor activities to the twilight of dawn and dusk. The last house I pass is of average size, its most distinguishing feature being its extremely light brown color which in certain lights appears to have passed over to a dirty yellow, perhaps making a statement about the inhabitant’s
“golden years.” She must be about eighty years old and is not very ambulatory on a good day, being fully dependent on house-keepers and gardeners. Her husband is long gone and her children live in other parts of the country and visit every two or three years. Some other resident I can’t recall once told me that; “She got it cheap, because the property was once a toxic waste site.” Another told me that the area was once a sizable cattle ranch. They’re probably both wrong; a relatively safe
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guess in Corrales. She keeps things as simple as possible, fencing about 1/3 of it with medium brown adobe capped by the same color used on the house and having posts and wire covering the other 2/3. Most of the acre property is covered only by reasonably maintained grass and other green things with some browned out patches where the watering system struggles with the constant summer direct sunlight. The house is about eight years old and the specimen plantings of only a few trees and bushes appear younger. Let the sun shine in, but stay out of the light, especially when near a mirror.
As I turn onto Corrales Road I recall a conversation I had with a guy I hired to refinish the brick floors when I first moved here. Like the one on the corner my house had few sparse plantings and I was mentioning that I was going to plant a lot more, because I like trees and bushes and also like the privacy they provide, properly placed. He preferred it “as is” and said that at his house the views are preferable to the limitations imposed by blockages. I quickly saw that this line of conversation was not going to be a pleasant one, if we each stuck to our guns and I tried various diversions, to little avail, as he kept returning to his idea of the desirability of openness, even citing some kind of tie in to being a good religious person, with biblical references and a further testimony that he never shuts the blinds. “Let the sun shine
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in,” and the like ancient crap that sounds dated and stupid to anyone under forty was his constant, un-divertible refrain. He had previously told me that in addition to his flooring endeavors, he also worked as a marriage counselor and offered his services. I suppose he was filling in the experience part of his resume, when he informed me that he was now married for the fifth time. I was getting very tired of what sounded to me like some type of preaching and/or sales pitch, obtainable free from the nearby Seventh Day Adventist Enterprises, Inc.
operation, so I said; “I guess you enjoy it when your neighbors watch you and your wife have sex and the first four weren’t into it.” I don’t think we spoke again until we settled up the bill.
Subsequent consideration of my agitated comment revealed a number of possibilities irrelevant in the heat of the moment; 1) He does, indeed enjoy having his neighbors watch him and his wife have sex; 2) His wife has the same predilection; 3) They both do; 4) They never have sex; 5) He never before realized that anyone would want to watch; 6) No one would ever watch; 7) He is considering ways to introduce fees or tithes for the privilege. I’ve never considered myself particularly voyeuristic, but I’ll have to admit that if one of the heterosexual couples living in view of my windows, were “doing it” I’d watch for a while, at least until “The Price is Right”
came on.
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“Corrales Road looks pretty today” I thought, as I passed the mixture of old adobes, new renovations, commercial buildings, schools, new houses and shacks. I see a smattering of people leisurely coming and/or going to the antique shops, quilt stores, hairdressing places and the like. I noticed, entering a residential area that a man was walking down the road in front of one of the houses. This wouldn’t be unusual in and of itself, but the last five or six times I had driven here a man was walking in the same spot. I’m sure that it wasn’t the same guy each time as one was particularly tall. What kind of coincidence caused someone to be in front of this particular house, whenever I drove by, while no other people were ever seen in front of the other houses? Might it be the residence of my brick floor refinisher? I couldn’t see. Maybe the “fee basis”
perusal was successfully implemented.
Central Avenue in downtown Albuquerque always gets my rapt attention for a few reasons. I have to watch the road and the other tanks on it intently, as Albuquerque has the worst drivers in the continental United States. Worse, many of them are not insured. The other reason is that when I’m away from other cars and can take a good look at the area, it may be described as haphazard, eclectic, irregular, diverse, or unique. I can never really get a handle on it and simply gaze, as it is not unusual
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to see many consecutive structures, each of which bear no apparent relationship to the others.
I can see a small Southwestern adobe brown house next to a two story white warehouse with gray metal closed doors, next to a glass fronted barber shop, next to a renovated Southwestern styled house, now light blue, in which “boutique” clothing and small New Mexican styled household items are sold, next to an abandoned nondescript old adobe, next to a former brick school-house, now with a sign advertising “Loft Space Available”, next to a three story wooden building with cream aluminum siding, the first level currently utilized as a retail gun shop, with a brown skinned young man pacing in front of it, embellished with a front and back placard, both sides containing the almost identical hand painted words; “Fake ID’s For Sale”, ostensibly the quality of which exceeds that of the placard.
After a few more blocks I see a quarter full parking lot opposite a three story building that attempts to mix traditional Southwestern light brown stucco, modernistic reflecting metal and Indian or Art Deco geometric forms, succeeding in looking like discarded items which inhabit the “Corrales Bosque.” I park as far from the other cars as possible, in the hope of finding it when I leave. I walk the blacktop, which crackles in the heat and climb twenty elongated concrete steps that have been treated with gray silicon. I see a person! She exits the
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shiny entrance, but moves quickly and enters a simple brown door marked “Exit.”
When I near the entrance, I see that the front’s first floor is 80% glass held in place by flat aluminum columns, with the only means of entry a single revolving door. I note two gold signs attached to one of the columns, one saying, “Built in 1989” and the other proudly informing me that the structure was designed by Levi Paulson. I wondered what other things Levi had done.
I easily pushed my way through the revolver and noted that when inside this cold spinning marvel also served as the “Exit.”
The lobby is the width of the structure, has plain white walls sitting on a pink-orange tiled floor and houses a gift shop at the north end. I see a ten foot curved silver desk below a
“Tickets” sign occupied by a 25 year old thin Native American female, wearing a light blue, non-native, Christian Dior dress, lots of silver jewelry and a smattering of pale makeup. She is looking at something on the desk, so I take the opportunity to view the little furniture in the barren area, finding two benches, similar in their incorporation of traditional Spanish and Indian patterns with hard edged modernism, resulting in a lightly brown stained Mission look. At least they’re constructed of wood. Closer inspection reveals that they also contain small golden signs indicating that they, too owe their
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existence to the design talents of Mr. Paulson and are attached to the wall with black chains.
The lady standing at the desk looks my way and says “Good afternoon, may I help you?”
I briskly walk over to her and say; “Good afternoon, yes, I’d like to see the museum,” smiling a bit, feeling silly at stating the obvious.
Her fiercely chiseled elegant face does not move, but her hands do, reaching under the desktop to retrieve a well-used 8 x 10 card covered in yellowing plastic. She puts it where I can read it. It says;
1- Albuquerque Museum of Art
2- Albuquerque Museum of Natural History 3- Albuquerque Museum of Native Americana 4- Albuquerque Museum of Spanish Culture 1-
$25
2-
$25
3-
$25
4-
$25
1 + 2-
$40
1 + 3-
$40
1 + 4-
$40
2 + 3-
$40
2 + 4-
$40
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3 + 4-
$40
1 + 2 + 3- $50
1 + 2 + 4- $50
1 + 2+ 3 + 4- $55
“Oh boy,” I thought as I perused the card. “This is not going to be easy.” I was looking forward to a relaxing mindless afternoon in the relieving air conditioning, looking at pretty pictures.
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